FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway http://www.forum18.org/ The right to believe, to worship and witness The right to change one's belief or religion The right to join together and express one's belief This article was published by F18News on: 26 July 2010 RUSSIA: Outdoor activity harassed, banned and violently attacked By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>, and <br> Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org> Outdoor public religious activity by Russian Jehovah's Witnesses, Hare Krishna devotees and Protestants has resulted in harassment by the police, repeated bans, and in one case a refusal to defend a Protestant meeting against violent attack involving stun grenades, Forum 18 News Service notes. The categories of activity targeted subdivide into very small groups of people sharing their beliefs with others in conversation in the street - normally Jehovah's Witnesses or occasionally Protestants - and outdoor public meetings or worship. By far the most common form of harassment takes place against pairs of Jehovah's Witnesses, and can involve unduly severe treatment of elderly or infirm people. Hare Krishna devotees in both Smolensk and Stavropol regions have experienced repeated banning of outdoor meetings, on grounds such as that they "inconvenience tourists on the way to the drinking fountains". Baptists in Rostov Region have experienced an attempted ban on a street library. Baptists in Tambov Region were banned from holding evangelistic concerts in a village, and when they were attacked with stun grenades by unknown people police did nothing to defend them. Visible public religious activity in Russia is increasingly resulting in harassment by police, Forum 18 News Service notes, in some cases from officers responsible for fighting extremism. Recent cases involve Jehovah's Witnesses, Hare Krishna devotees and Baptists, who risk detentions, fines, bans and literature confiscations. The categories of public religious activity targeted subdivide into very small groups of people sharing their beliefs with others in conversation in the street - normally Jehovah's Witnesses or occasionally Protestants - and outdoor public meetings or worship. By far the most common form of harassment takes place against groups of two people. Those offering religious literature on the street or door-to-door were targets in many of the over 265 incidents of state harassment reported by the Jehovah's Witnesses since the landmark Supreme Court ruling against them on 8 December 2009. The ruling upheld an earlier decision by Rostov-on-Don Regional Court outlawing 34 Jehovah's Witness titles as extremist and dissolving the local Jehovah's Witness religious organisation in Taganrog (see F18News 8 December 2009 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1385>). On 13 July 2010 the Jehovah's Witnesses submitted an appeal to the Supreme Court against the 27 January 2010 endorsement by Altai Republic Supreme Court of a lower court verdict outlawing a further 18 of their titles as extremist (see F18News 28 January 2010 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1400>). Muslim readers of the works of theologian Said Nursi, whose works in Russian translation are also banned as extremist, are also targeted across Russia (see eg. F18News 7 July 2010 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1464>). Street sharing of beliefs targeted Most of the latest harassment of very small groups sharing their beliefs resemble those previously reported (see most recently F18News 25 March 2010 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1426>). In some cases police appear to have acted with undue severity against arrested people who are either elderly or in a poor state of health. On 29 June, three police officers who did not identify themselves detained two women in their seventies who were offering Jehovah's Witness literature on the streets of Sarapul (Udmurtia). At the police station they were forced to empty their pockets and bags under threat of being strip-searched. They were also forced to hand over their Bibles and Jehovah's Witness magazines. Police continued to question the two elderly women, even though one of them said she had a headache and was suffering pain from her heart. Medical attention was refused. Cases under the Code of Administrative Violations were launched against the two. They were finally freed at 11 pm, more than three hours after their detention. On 7 April, police detained and seized religious literature from two Jehovah's Witnesses in their eighties, Yevdokiya Popova and Lyudmila Derbentseva, who had been preaching in the village of Oblivskaya (Rostov-on-Don Region). http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1469 Copyright Forum18 News Service 2010 Page 1/4 On 26 February, two Jehovah's Witnesses in their seventies, Militina Churbanova and Zinaida Zolotareva, were detained for six hours by police in Cherepovets (Vologda Region) after they circulated copies of "Is History Repeating Itself?". This leaflet defends Jehovah's Witnesses against state claims of religious extremism, and was distributed by the entire Russian Jehovah's Witness membership in late February (see F18News 26 February 2010 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1415>). In Smolensk Region, an attempt to prosecute two Hare Krishna devotees for activity similar to these Jehovah's Witness cases failed. The region has banned a Hare Krishna public meeting (see below), but a magistrate's court found no case against Belarusian citizens Mikhail Senkevich and Andrei Urin for distributing Hare Krishna literature on the street on 6 April. The pair had been accused of violating the region's 2003 Law on Missionary Activity and corresponding Article 28 of the regional Administrative Violations Code ("violating regulations on missionary activity"). The local Krishna community nevertheless received an official warning as a result from Smolensk Regional Public Prosecutor's Office on 17 May. Street library targeted Unlike Jehovah's Witnesses, Protestants are not being targeted nationwide in connection with alleged religious extremism nor subject to large-scale harassment of their street activities. However, they occasionally experience harassment by police and local officials of public activity in streets. On 31 March, the Wednesday before Easter, four Council of Churches Baptists in Salsk (Rostov-on-Don Region) offered Christian books and leaflets free of charge to passers-by. However, police ordered them to go to the police station "for a check-up on the literature," the Baptists told Forum 18. The four were then taken to the Prosecutor's Office before being taken back to the police station. The Baptists' books were confiscated without any record being drawn up and they were then released. A case under Article 13.22 of the federal Administrative Violations Code ("violation of the procedure for giving publication data") was brought against one of the four, Vitaly Bibik, but on 25 May a lay magistrate ruled that no offence had been committed, cancelled the case and returned the confiscated books, the Baptists told Forum 18. Local official behind harassment? The Baptists have been operating the street library in Salsk for 13 years. They say trouble began in 2009, when Oleg Krakhmalny, the official in charge of relations with political, social, religious and ethnic organisations at Salsk District administration, "banned" the street library several times and called the police. In the village of Pechineno (Samara Region), members of several Council of Churches Baptist congregations were offering Christian books door-to-door on 10 June and inviting villagers to an evangelistic event when a senior local official and police officer told them they were breaking the law. The following day the road police stopped at their street library to check church members' identity documents and ask why and in what vehicles they had arrived. Four of the Baptists were then taken to the police station. Two - Sergei Yurkin and Aleksandr Imashov - were taken to court accused of violating Article 20.2, Part 1 of the Administrative Violations Code ("violation of the procedure for organising meetings, demonstrations, processions and pickets"). Despite their protestations that they were not violating social order nor causing harm, and that only restrictions necessary and established by law are allowable in a democratic society, a lay magistrate fined each of them 1,000 Roubles (206 Norwegian Kroner, 26 Euros or 33 US Dollars). Public meeting banned and attacked with stun grenades When local members of the Baptist Union in Tambov Region sought to hold a series of evangelistic events in Sosnovka village from the evening of Saturday 10 July, its administration rejected their 30 June request, Pastor Vadim Mikhalin of Truth Baptist Church in Tambov told Forum 18 on 22 July. Officials cited opposition from Russian Orthodox clergy reported in the local newspaper. Their meetings on 9 July with Valery Toporkov, the village's head of administration, and the local Prosecutor's Office failed to overcome objections, and police recommended that they not conduct any events without permission. Permission not being a legal requirement, the Baptists went ahead with a rehearsal in the evening of 9 July attended by some local residents, but police arrived after two separate complaints - one from an elected representative. A deputy police chief admitted that the Baptists were not breaking the law. However, an aggressive group of people arrived late that night, swore and threw stun grenades at them while police watched. "The police failed to intervene to stop the attack and in the early hours of Saturday morning we were forced to flee," Pastor Mikhalin complained to Forum 18. Village head of administration Toporkov told Forum 18 on 26 July that he had not been present when the group of people had attacked the Baptists. But he conceded that the police have a duty to protect people against attack. Colonel Sergei Vatanovsky, head of Sosnovka District Police, declined absolutely to discuss with Forum 18 on 26 July the Baptists' allegations that his officers failed to defend them from attack.